THree Courses, No Meal
by O'Donnell
Summary: From a bottle of champagne to a head butt, and many places and misunderstandings in between. And the surprise help and diplomacy of a stranger. A loost scene from The Empty Hearse


Three Courses, No Meal

How do you get from champagne and a proposal to a head butt and rejection - all in one evening? And why keep trying until you can't try any more? Sherlock is back. But things are not as easy as he imagined. And a stranger holds the key.

Three Courses, No Meal

This is a dream. It is surreal. This is the nightmare that haunted his broken sleep in every night of the two years he was away. This is the nightmare made real.

John Watson with his hands around his throat and trying to kill him. John Watson beyond himself with anger and hatred. John Watson feeling pain and delivering pain in return.

This is the thought - and now the act - that have showed in all their horror that being declared dead was never going to be enough.

That at some point in the process of lies and death and grief and anger John Watson would be phlegmatically holding a pistol to his head and ready to pull the trigger. Or would have his hands around his throat in blind anger and throttling the life out of him. Or sliding a commando's shiv coolly up between his ribs.

Because suddenly it was clear to him that being seen to be dead, and being said to be dead, was never proof, nor truth, enough. Sherlock Holmes had to be more dead than just dead.

Had to be killed by his best friend, to be dead with a slow determination, not a fleeting sleight-of-hand death, to be seen as totally lifeless and positively not breathing. Visibly mortally wounded at the very least.

Bleeding out would be proof positive. Seeing how he would look with his eyes empty and filming over opaque as his system closed down and all turned still and empty and grey.

The appearance of a naked corpse in a refrigerated drawer or body bag with a label tied to the big toe would do it as well.

All the time he had been away the nightmare had seemed so real. That constant nightmare cycle of being dead at John Watson's hands as punishment for not telling him the dying fall was fake, punishment for not letting him into the secret, punishment for making Watson stand and watch him fall to his pretend death.

Punishment for putting him in a position whereby Watson would try to reach his body on the hard wet pavement. Making sure that John Watson - his best friend, his only friend, his colleague and assistant and beating heart - was so convinced he was dead, that only his conviction would convict the rest of the world.

It might not have been necessary to have that aperitif of argument, absorb those insults - _you machine! Friends protect people! -_ but it had seemed an extra necessity - nicety? - at the time, to make John Watson angry with him, hate him; make him react so sharply and visibly to the rest of the world his response to Sherlock Holmes's death. So the last conversation had to be of anger and haughtiness and incomprehension. So Watson would feel much better about accepting - even welcoming - his death.

But the simple fact was he had been unable to forget those vicious barbs ever since that exchange in Bart's. That was sentiment, that was weakness in him. But he had had to do that. He really had. Shock and hurt and destroy. That was how he always did things: thoroughly, coldly, regardless of feelings. Always refused to count the cost, admit to finer feelings or conscience, or any feelings at all, really.

Had needed John Watson to be angry, use that drive to get him through the hurt, and the caring, and the not burning with pain over his death. Because that was the only way he could both ease the pain and keep John Watson safe….and none of it had been his fault, after all. He had not started this, only reacted to Moriarty's lethal games, and to responded to defeat them. Reacted as he had needed to. That was all.

And yet in those two years away righting wrongs and saving lives and cauterising wounds, he had sometimes realised exactly what he had done and despised himself for it, doubting his quixotic actions, realising the human cost of his great plan, his pathetic act of self sacrifice that had seemed so right and so inevitable at the time.

It had been a waking and sleeping nightmare. As a nightmare it had been manageable.

But now it was real, it was happening in truth and in actuality and in public.

John Watson had just seen him alive and 'not dead.' He had not reacted with relief or surprise or humour. He had been angry. Sherlock Holmes had not expected angry. Astonishment, perhaps, or bafflement. But not angry. He had been so thrilled at the thought of seeing John Watson again after so long…he had been stupid - _human -_ to think Watson would feel the same.

The moustache should have told him. Mycroft should have warned him. The John Watson he had left behind had aged in more ways than just that ugly conventional moustache, the furrowed brow, the tired eyes. He had lost his heart somewhere along the line. So instead of grinning and crinkling those blue eyes and laughing aloud, revelling in the cleverness of it all as he would have done before the fall, John Watson had thumped the table and snarled, and shouted and wrestled him to the ground, with murder in his eyes.

Had clamped those capable and calloused hands around his throat with serious intent - just like in the nightmares -and had tried to throttle the very life out of him. As if he was his adversary, his worst enemy. Not his best and only friend.

The shock was so strong - that this was actually happening, that what his subconscious had always predicted was no longer just a nightmare - it rendered Sherlock Holmes shocked and stricken and incapable of defending himself.

So he lay on the ground, defeated finally by heart, not evil, relaxing his chin into Watson's hold, releasing and offering his throat to those powerful hands, and for a moment was prepared to just let Doctor John Watson try to kill him. Wanted him to.

Well, this was Watson's reward, wasn't it? Killing him with his bare hands, something Sherlock knew the former soldier was well capable of. Releasing all that grief and anger and remorse after so long? Sherlock knew Watson's brutal emotional release was also hisown punishment for inflicting it.

So he tried not to look into the steel blue eyes that were sparking angry fire at him. Tried not to feel Watson's rasping breath on his face. Tried not to scream at the pain in his back as the floor of the restaurant came up to meet him, and he felt the sticky warmth of the half healed welts reopen and bleed again and stick themselves to the cool linen of his shirt.

He has spent so long just wanting to see John Watson's face again - just once would have done, he had promised himself in a moment of weakness - yet now all he could do was close his eyes against the anger and bitterness and hurt he saw in the older man's face. And he knew it was his fault. It kept being his fault, and there was no way he seemed to be able to stop the spiral downwards into all the reasons John Watson could and should justifiably kill him.

Perhaps he should just lie there and wait to die. He could do that, now. There were worse fates than being killed by your only friend, worse ways to die, and he had narrowly missed most of them over the past two years. The law of averages could no longer be defeated. And the pain was impossible to resist any more….

He coughed, and gasped, left his Mind Palace as his body commanded separation in the instinct for survival, and his brain caught up with his body at last. So his eyes blew wide open…and there was Watson in reality, far too close, not a figment of his imagination, but still glaring vehemently down into his face. But almost hesitating now….was the worst of the anger over?

Or was he really going to kill him, kill him properly now, with the pull back just a pause to allow for calculated decisive precision of the act? Sherlock Holmes realised he really did not care any more.

But then. Then there was suddenly a press of people crowding in upon the two of them, people trying to pull Watson's hands from his throat. Not least of them that blonde woman, who was grasping John Watson's thumbs, saying with intense calm:

"No, John! Let go! This solves nothing. And you are making an exhibition of yourself!"

Then something moved in John Watson's eyes. Humanity returning. Sherlock Holmes saw it. And as control came back to John Watson, Sherlock Holmes put himself back behind his emotional barriers and waited with a sense of anticlimax for the storm in his friend's soul to abate. If it would.

The press of alien hands plucked them apart. Waiters made a barrier between Watson and Holmes, and the maitre d' helped him to his feet.

Sherlock Holmes heard himself going into full outside world sociability acting mode; profuse apologies…misunderstanding…a friendly prank that went wrong….cross wires…misunderstanding…emotional excess…bad timing….misunderstanding.. accidentally aborted marriage proposal…all too silly.

Mycroft's debit card paid the bill (well, his own was not yet in operation again, and Mycroft felt he owed him….which he did) and his public school manners pulled him through, finally.

Jacob Van Dijk was amused to have his bow tie returned. He was impressed he had not felt a thing when it was stolen from around his neck, wanted to know how to do that party trick, had found the floor show a distraction from celebrating his own thirty second wedding anniversary to a wife who had expected something more than wining and dining in celebration. Of course he forgave Sherlock for making him a part of the stunt. He would dine off this story for weeks!

Justin Blakesley was more concerned about getting his spectacles back. He had only been wearing glasses for two months, and was still at the 'losing the things or sitting on them' stage. He had never even noticed they had gone. Made a mental note to himself to take this short sightedness more seriously! But he sympathised with the prank; it was something he himself would have liked to have had the courage to have done years earlier. And he omitted to mention he wished that someone had done the same thing for him and stopped him proposing to his wife.

And as for Corinne Atkinson, she was highly amused to have her mascara returned to her by a man who had borrowed it. Not to mention such a handsome man! Her sinuous smile and her hand on his arm was meant to tell Sherlock she was amenable to more conversation. Or a table for two back here tomorrow night? And why was that small blonde lady attached to the small blond man instead of the tall dark and handsome one? She supposed it took all sorts, but even so…..

By the time Sherlock had charmed, paid and smoothed the spirit of the restaurant, he then had to face the manager. Who returned Mycroft's debit card in icy silence and, once out in the foyer, snapped a tart: "Please do not return, _sir,_ this establishment does not appreciate the excitement."

And threw him out with a polite but determined hand and a push in the small of his back.

Sherlock resisted explaining he could break an arm in seconds or simply plant the manager into the floor. Stumbled down the restaurant steps numb and empty, sick at heart and exhausted.

He looked up at the stars in an appeal to the heavens for mental balance and dragged in air. He felt he was suffocating. Reeling, he was about to turn and walk away when a voice halted him.

"Sherlock?"

It was the voice of the blonde woman who had been with Watson. Pretty, in a very ordinary way. Intelligent bright blue eyes. Clever and competent. Smart frock, pretty if austere hair style. This was the woman John Watson wanted to marry, Sherlock registered, finally. Not his usual willowy brunette girlfriend type, but a short and competent blonde, just like himself. How very apt. Nurse (well of course!) Size 12 (too easy to assess) Right handed, not a vir….

The deductions stuttered to a halt as he realised she had one hand out to him as if in supplication, and the other held John Watson by the wrist as if he was trapped by her. John Watson was twisting uncomfortably away, determined not to look towards or meet Sherlock Holmes's eyes, head low set in hunched shoulders like a boxer. Still angry, then. Not in a forgiving mood.

"My appearance was inappropriate. My apologies."

He snapped his head up and down to her in a small formal bow, almost clicked his heels together. She smiled at that, despite herself.

"My name is Mary Morstan. John was about to propose marriage to me. He is a little….over wound this evening."

"Not good timing on my part," Sherlock Holmes conceded.

"You could say that," she agreed mildly. But then her face blossomed into a deep and delicious smile, seeing the absurdity of the situation; and just as suddenly Sherlock Holmes could see what John Watson saw. Then they both looked across at John Watson, who was too busy looking anywhere but at his friend, and whose anger was still more than visible.

The friend and the fiancee shared a complicit and unexpected smile. Instant friendship, instant unity of heart and of purpose? And all for John Watson?

Sherlock Holmes snagged a breath. A woman of heart and courage and intelligence then; and also with a true sense of the absurd. This should all be too good to be true. Yet sometimes miracles happened, and was truly no less than John Watson deserved. Some deep fear Sherlock Holmes had not even recognised as such released itself a notch.

"Are you for real?" The voice was a snarl and seemed to rip out of John Watson despite himself as he finally turned to face his friend

"S-sorry?"

"Are you really Sherlock Holmes or just a very good lookalike? Has someone paid you to do this as a joke?"

"Who would, John? Who would bother? And who would want to be me?"

He could hear the hollowness in his voice. Hunched his shoulders and forced his clenched hands deep into hiding in his pockets. He realised he could not look John Watson in the face, and he just wanted to go. Get out of the way.

"Think this is funny, do you?"

"I am sorry, John. I made a mistake. I'll just go….."

He moved to walk away, managed two steps. But then Mary Morstan reached for Sherlock Holmes's wrist, dragged a cold hand from it's pocket and squeezed it. One hand connected to each man now, she shook both their arms to demand their attention.

"Come on!" she said with determined cheerfulness. "Both of you - right now! Getting thrown out of a posh restaurant isn't the end of the night! There's a great little Italian place just down the road…."

She tugged the two reluctant men forward.

Both hesitated.

"Come on, boys!" she exclaimed, bright and encouraging and refusing to be quelled by their mutual reluctance. "This is supposed to be a red letter evening - _my_ red letter evening. And now in more ways than one! Cheer up! Onwards and upwards!"

She laughed at them, jollying them on. In a TV comedy show the two men would have looked at each other, raised eyebrows, taken a beat in timing and then burst out laughing, jointly and together. But in reality John still refused to look at Sherlock and Sherlock could not bear to look at his friend and see the rejection in his eyes.

Mary Morstan marched them down the road, light of step and smiling, keeping up the conversation, filling in the deep silence filling the air either side of her.

o0o0o0o

Trattoria Veneziana had cheerful red check tablecloths, chianti bottles with candles in the necks, and smiling waiters.

There was a table free and they took it.

Instead of sitting opposite Mary as expected, John Watson sat down opposite Sherlock and glowered up at him, glaringly pugnaciously, arms folded. Sherlock sat back; not taking off his coat, expecting fireworks, expecting to have to leave the party suddenly and alone. Always, always alone.

For a moment his eyes stung and he raised his chin in defiance; resting it in characteristic pose on steepled fingers. He looked down at John Watson and settled his mask into place.

"I calculated that there were thirteen possibilities," he began as if dictating, before John Watson could interrupt him, before Mary Morstan could mediate with her chipper cheerfulness. "I'd invited Moriarty onto the roof. I wanted to avoid dying if at all possible. The first scenario involved hurling myself into a parked hospital van filled with washing bags. Impossible. The angle was too steep. Secondly, a system of Japanese wrestling…"

He was just getting into his stride when John Watson did finally interrupt him, voice low and full of feeling.

"You know, for a genius you can be remarkably thick."

"What?" Sherlock stops talking as if kicked in the head. And in a way, he has been.

"I don't care how you faked it, Sherlock. I want to know why."

Watson's body language is still threatening, and Sherlock is rattled. In the past his friend would have listened, nodded, made appreciative noises. But not now. Not any more. So much has changed, and all for the worse. For a moment Sherlock's breathing hitches, and he fights his reaction.

"Why?" Sherlock throws him a look, but Watson is avoiding his eyes, looking stern, unhappy, irritated. It makes Sherlock uncertain and hesitant. If John Watson is not listening, understanding, appreciating, then what is the point of all this?

" Because Moriarty had to be stopped." He makes his statement with utter certainty, yet still stutters to a halt as Watson slants a black look from beneath his eyebrows.. "Oh. Why as in….I see. Yes. Why. That's a little more difficult to explain."

"I've got all night."

The flat, black tone is chilling if not downright scary. In his peripheral vision he can see Mary Morstan giving him a doubtful look too; so she has never heard this tone from Watson either. Interesting.

Sherlock takes a deep breath, clears his throat and looks down, away from the accusing angry eyes of the man he thought was his best - his only - friend. And realises he may now have to review that categorisation.

There is something starting to bleed out where his soul should be, and he feels fresh blood ooze across his shoulders as he moves them and some dried bloody patch of shirt unsticks itself. That's all he needs; bleeding through into his jacket. Keep the coat on, don't let the weakness show.

"Actually that was mostly Mycroft's idea," he excuses himself, on more certain ground now.

"Oh; so its your brothers plan?"

That admittance does not seem to improve things. Why not?

Mary Morstan, who has been sitting back and watching from the sidelines, suddenly pipes up: "Oh, he would have needed a confidante…"

Sherlock looks across at her, grateful for the distraction and the moral support. This woman is unusual. She seems to understand him….

"Hmn," he murmurs, almost smiling at her. But then she says "Sorry…." in reaction to the black look Watson shoots across at her, and withdraws back into silence.

"But he was the only one? The only one who knew?"

Sherlock has to make a decision. He is slowly realising Watson is angry with him because he feels cheated and betrayed. But Watson will understand how much Mycroft would need to be in on the secret. So should he be truthful with the rest? And make his friend even angrier? Or lie? And then perhaps be found out - if not now, at some unguarded moment in the future? He opts for truth and pain now rather than later. So he knows. So he can recover, move on, Whether it be alone or together.

"Couple of others," Sherlock admits in a lighter, almost dismissive, tone. John Watson almost growls, and his pain and disappointment is palpable. Sherlock talks quickly, trying to get past this before Watson decks him again.

"It was a very elaborate plan. It had to be. The next of the thirteen possibilities…"

Interrupted again. Watson getting angrier, bleaker, more focussed.

"Who else? Who else knew?"

Sherlock hesitates. He realises Watson is so angry he is having trouble getting the words out. And he is also closing down and does not know what to do next. Mary Morstan is not helping; a quick glance shows she doesn't know what to do either.

"Who?" Watson is determined and remorseless. He is not going to let Sherlock get away without a proper explanation.

"Molly," Sherlock says almost brightly. He is on solid ground now; he can do this. Facts. Just facts. For John Watson will understand involving Molly in the magic trick. Molly is science; clever and bright and good….

".Molly Hooper."

Mary Morstan murmurs "John…." in warning as Sherlock rushes in to fill the silence.

"Molly Hooper. And some of my homeless network. And that's all."

"OK. So just your brother and Molly Hooper and a hundred tramps."

Sherlock chuckles; John Watson sounds almost reasonable again. And John was always reasonable. Always calm, reasonable, fair minded….

"No!" he denies, almost laughs. "Twenty five at most!"

He is not prepared for action or self defence when Watson hurls himself across the table and attempts to throttle him again. The chair rocks back, and through the resulting melee Sherlock is hurting.

o0o0o0o

So again they are forcibly ejected by management. This time there is nothing to pay - they hadn't even had time to place an order.

They stand and face each other again on another pavement. No-one speaks. Sherlock Holmes sidles out of range of John Watson's reach to avoid the risk of another blow, and in his peripheral vision he realises Mary Morstan sees and comprehends the reason he is moving away.

Again he is surprised by the thought that she sees, she understands, she reads his mindset and is neither frightened nor appalled by it. Does John Watson realise what an unusual and exceptional woman he has snagged here?

Nevertheless, instead of shifting just a few feet, Sherlock keeps moving slowly away. If he moves quietly, they might not realise he is moving further, out of range, drifting quietly away. Leaving them. Leaving their lives. Walking away and leaving them for good in their own new little world. A world in which he clearly has no place, no role, no comfort.

"What are you doing? Sherlock?" John Watson has lifted his head up and out of his anger and self absorption, and has moved suddenly. Has spun forward and past and now stepped sharply in front of him, barring his way from moving the wrong way along the pavement. Sherlock stops to avoid Watson stepping further into his personal space, flashes up a glance, then looks down again.

He can almost taste John Watson's anger and hurt and bitterness, and has no idea how to solve this; to stop Watson's pain and upset. Or even understand it. He has been away - and now he is back. Where is the problem with that?

Perhaps it was a touch presumptious to assume everything could go back to how it was before, so easy and exciting, and mutual and firing on all cylinders - and together.

All he can see now is that Watson has found a new life in the past two years. A new job, a new home, a new woman and a moustache. There is no way to counter that, defeat it, find his own place within it.

He has slogged and sacrificed and schemed and survived. And for what? His life and his world is closing down around him. He has come home to nothing. Nothing but emptiness and being alone again. For a moment he feels a flare of anger. Mycroft should have told him, prepared him. Or just left him in Serbia to rot. That would have been the natural end of things, that would have been tolerable, acceptable. Pain that ended the pain.

"Sherlock!"

Just as it used to, Watson's sharp call of his name brings him back to reality, grounds him. He looks at his former flatmate and assistant with something between defeat, acceptance, and the bleak recognition of inevitability. Watson is looking up at him. The worst of the initial anger seems to be leaving him. There is a puzzled frown between his eyes, and Sherlock looks at this as if at something new, as if looking at someone he has never seen before.

There are bags under the eyes that were not there before. A grey tinge to his skin that has nothing to do with ill health. A sag to the usually firm shoulders. More lines on the face; more than two years should have put there. More grey hairs among the blond.

Sherlock frowns. Did he put those signs of age and stress there? Did he do that? Prematurely age the man by saving his life? Break his heart by being away? No! Stupid! Ridiculous idea! And any way….Mary Morstan was bringing him a new heart. A loving and life affirming and a beautifully ordinary heart.

"What are you doing, Sherlock?" Watson's words are softer. Almost offering apology, understanding.

"Going. I should never have…sorry…bad timing…always bad timing…let's just leave it, John."

"No, we need to talk about this. About you coming back from the dead. At least catch up on what you've been doing for the last two years, for Christ's sake."

"You don't want to know." He pulls himself together. "Never meant to upset you. Get in the way. Bad timing, as always." He is repeating himself…because he is not sure Watson is even listening. Slants a smile and finally gets a tentative smile back. "Sorry."

There is a prickling behind his eyes and a pain in his chest, and he has run out of …..everything.

"Go back to Mary. Get on with your proposal." He leans towards Watson, smiles conspiratorially. "I think she's going to say yes. Mind you, that's only my deduction. I might be wrong."

Watson laughs and it sounds like a sob. Shakes his head.

"I sort of think that moment has passed. For tonight at least."

Watson puts out a hand as if to touch Sherlock's arm, or knuckle his chin, or pat his shoulder, but Sherlock jerks away. A touch would be too much. It would break him.

Watson misinterprets, but persists.

"Thanks to me I have just gotten us thrown out of a posh restaurant and a nice Italian place. I'm sorry, Sherlock. It was….shock. Anger. Everything."

"Yes. As I said. My fault. Sorry." He steps away. He has to finish this while he still can. "I must go. It was good to see you again, John. Goodbye. Be happy."

Watson clamps a hand round his wrist.

"No. Not as easy as that, Sherlock." the strong soldier's voice comes into play. Sherlock freezes.

"It is, John. It really is."

He wished his voice sounded less sad, less soft. He gathers himself to walk away.

Unexpectedly, a hand glides around his waist, and someone presses against him. Mary Morstan. Warm, soft, clinging, seriously female and intuitive.

"You can't walk away from us just like that, Sherlock. John needs to talk to you, and I need to get to know his best friend. Because I am intrigued!" She laughs up into his face, and he feels her breath on his cheek, smells her perfume - flowery, light, deeply feminine - _Clair de la lune._ He is not used to answering to female appeal and hesitates.

"That's it! Good! Come on, boys - this is a bit like a pub crawl, but without the beer. I am not going to be defeated by this, I am going to get my meal out tonight if it kills me! Next stop - the kebab shop!"

She links arms with both men this time, the laughing, determinedly light hearted girl in the middle of two strong men, their peacekeeper, their catalyst.

Watson looks over her head to make eye contact with his friend. "You can't argue with her when she's like this!" he exclaims. He is laughing, proud, released. Sherlock watches them both and feels something inside crawl away in defeat to die.

But he smiles and allows himself to be drawn along. He thinks he might regret this yet.

o0o0o0o

He stands back from the counter and lets John and Mary select their order. The plan, apparently, is to take kebabs back to their flat that is not 221b and share a bottle of wine in celebration of the return from the dead and the almost-proposal It should be going to be all right now.

But something makes him stand back and watch them together, relaxed and at ease together despite his presence. He is using a harsh paper napkin from the kebab shop counter to mop blood from the split lip that is threatening the new white shirt Mycroft had bought him earlier that day. Blood from the split lip Watson had inflicted in the trattoria.

.

He feels a need to say something and they banter for the benefit of Mary and the people in the shop, almost like in the old days, about the moustache. But neither of them have their heart in it, and then Sherlock delivers one deduction too many and makes it clear Mary does not like the moustache either.

"I'm sorry. I didn't know how to tell you…." she apologises to John, but does not correct Sherlock's assessment.

"No, no this is charming."

Watson's anger is rising again. He is battling, now. Both Sherlock and Mary against him on this; the moustache he had grown to show he was a new man, grown up, conventional, responsible, and over the death of the best friend he had loved like…like…no-one he had ever known or loved so much ever before.

He points angrily at Sherlock, then steps right up into his face, expression dark, dangerous - livid. A punch is narrowly averted.

"I've really missed this!" He looks up into Sherlock's eyes and finds words he has been hunting all evening.

"One word, Sherlock. That is all I would have needed. One word to let me know that you were alive."

The crux of it all. Sherlock looks up and away. Tilt your head up and tears won't want to fall; or be able to. Mycroft first told him that when he was tiny. It had always proved true.

"I've nearly been in contact so many times," he admits, and is interested in a detached sort of way to hear that his voice does not break. "But…"

John Watson scoffs in disbelief.

"I worried that, you know, you might say something indiscreet….." .

"What?"

"Well, you know; let the cat out of the bag." He is waffling now, he can hear himself.

 _Sounding pathetic. Stop! Just stop yourself! Can't you hear how ordinary and needy you sound? Just stop this!_

"Oh, so this is my fault!"

Mary laughs distantly in disbelief. It stokes John Watson's anger and Sherlock watches the train crash he knows is going to happen, fascinated and appalled and wondering if he ever had had the first idea as to how to stop this. Or why he had started it.

"Why am I the only one who thinks that this is wrong - the only one acting like a human being?" demands John Watson, voice rising in volume and pitch. Seeing the woman he loves and the man his life once revolved around looking at him with the same assessment, the same detachment.

"Over reacting," Sherlock offers, softly and archly, trying to stop everyone else in the shop looking at them. To get Watson to hear how ridiculous this is all starting to sound.

"Over reacting?" How much suppressed anger can one small ex army captain put into two simple words?

"John!" Mary says. Warningly.

"Over reacting! So you fake your own death …" Watson is getting angrier, his voice rising again.

"Sshh!" Hisses Sherlock, as if to a child.

"And you waltz in here, large as bloody life…." Louder, still angrier.

"Shh!" Again.

"But I'm not supposed to have a problem with that, no, because Sherlock Holmes _thinks it's a perfectly OK thing to do!"_

His voice is getting close to angry hysteria, all the pain and mistrust and betrayal of the past two years boiling over. And Sherlock realises there is nothing either of them can do to stop this volcano erupting now.

"Shut up, John! I don't want everyone knowing I'm still alive!" Well: he can try. Appeal to the man's better nature, his old rapport and empathy.

"Oh, so it's still a secret, is it?"

"Yes, it's still a secret. Promise you won't tell anyone."

It is starting to become a shouting match. A quiet, civilised, uncivilised shouting match of the sort neither would entertain normally. But this is not normal. It is abnormal, and awful, and horrid and shaming.

"Swear to God!" Watson cries. Scathing, hurt, angry. Hears himself. Looks round, realises he is out of control, that people are looking at him, and tries to snap back into control, like the good soldier he is.

He catches a deep breath in, deep breath out. Sherlock takes his chance. Steps closer to his friend, speaks quietly. An appeal to a behaviour pattern from the past, a last throw of the dice.

"London is in danger, John. There's an imminent terrorist attack and I need your help."

 _Please listen, John. Please respond. Please be yourself. The yourself I know, like you used to be. Come over to me, John. Step back into my aura. I can't do it without you, not this. Not something as immense as this huge problem Mycroft has brought me back from Serbia for, has thrown at me to solve for him. For England, for Chrissake. Without trying to sound like the drama queen you have so often accused me of being._

He blinks. Looks at the tight line of John Watson's mouth, his angry body language. Thinks again. He has been knocked off balance tonight. All his certainties, all the truths and fixed points that kept him going through the past two years have all disappeared, crumbled into dust.

 _No, John, don't. Don't consider it. I didn't - don't - mean it. Choose love and life and convention, John. Be safe. You'll be safe without me. And happy with Mary. I have always managed on my own before. I can do it again._

"My help?"

The words, the sudden flare of hope in his eyes, are at odds with the way he quirks a look at Mary Morstan, then looks back at Sherlock. Sherlock feels the old craving for excitement and adrenalin rush back into John Watson's system again.

Sherlock unexpectedly deduces this; suddenly feels that the old connection might still be there, lurking under the surface….so he smiles. He can't help it, not now.

"You have missed this. Admit it. The thrill of the chase, the blood pumping through your veins. Just the two of us against the rest of the world…"

As he speaks his smile broadens, his confidence grows. What had he been worrying about? Time might pass, looks might change, but the man is still the adrenalin junkie he always was. Surely?

John Watson looks up at him. Steps forward. Sherlock thinks - hopes - the hug he stepped away from earlier is going to happen now. He can allow it now. Welcome it, even.

He is totally unprepared for the way Watson grabs the lapels of his jacket, lunges forward and delivers a head butt; an old fashioned Glasgow kiss in the only way a soldier can deliver it. Hard and hurting.

Sherlock Holmes really does cry then. And blood flows.

o0o0o0o

How many times can three grown adults in evening dress be thrown out of dining establishments in one evening? Or is three enough for anyone's appetite?

They stand in the doorway of the kebab shop and John Watson storms off to find a taxi, leaving Sherlock Holmes and Mary Morstan standing awkwardly together.

"Are you all right?" she asks tentatively.

"I'm fine."

"No you're not."

He looks at her. Raises an eyebrow.

"I'm a nurse. I know someone in pain when I see it."

"It is pretty obvious even to an idiot that your fiance has attacked me three times this evening. Tried to throttle me twice, split my lip and has now head butted me. Blood is flowing quite freely from my nose. "

He dabbed his nostrils with another cheap paper tissue.

She flapped a hand at him that clearly said -"I know. But it's not that, now is it?" - but wisely decided to let the matter drop. Not looking at Sherlock, watching Watson try to attract the attention of a black cab, she says quietly:

"He's been under a lot of pressure. Depressed. Distressed. Suicidal. Because of you. You must expect him to be a bit over reactive."

"I don't understand. I said I'm sorry. Isn't that what you are supposed to do?"

On the edge of his vision he watches her look at him with some expression between wonder and pity.

"Gosh, you don't know anything about human nature, do you?"

He looks down at her properly then. Almost smiles. Good. He can still convince people of this. Two years on his essence is still strong then, still the same.

"Nature?" he makes a show of considering the matter. "No." Another pause. "Human? No."

She smiles at him properly then. Looks him in the eye.

"I'll talk him round."

This is not what he had expected. He is surprised, and lets it show. Takes a deep breath. This is more than he deserves, more than he expected. Potential fiancees are not supposed to be like this. They are supposed to be jealous, protective, possessive.

Not sensible, adult, generous. Not like this. Who in Hades is Mary Morstan?

"You will?"

"Oh yeah."

She is confident. Confident of John Watson, of her own powers. Of her power over him. Her feminine wils. She smiles a little secret smile to herself, and Sherlock sees it. What does she do? What does this woman know?

Sherlock look at her, opens his mind to what he is seeing now, what he has seen this evening.

There is an underlay of antiseptic below the perfume, the cosmetics. A nurse then. So they met at work, as if by accident. Watson had not been desperately lonely and hunting; they had found each other by accident. Then found they spoke the same language, used the same shorthand. Was that it? Was that how their relationship happened?

Their similarity - short, slight, blond, sensible, practical - was obvious. Did she know about and understand John Watson's craving for darkness and danger? Did she share that drive, that determination? Was she worried by his military past, his PTSD and the physical and mental scars he carried? Or did she find that exciting, unusual, unconventional? A turn on?

Sherlock deduced. The sharp and sympathetic relativity to others of an only child. A bit shortsighted. Her voice held traces of several different word sounds and sentence structures; bit of a linguist, then. The air of liberal thought processes; probably reads the Guardian, votes Lib Dem, bakes her own bread; romantic and quixotic rather than sentimental. Yet capable of sentiment. More capable than she likes to appear. Probably more determined and detached too, from the way she had treated both him, as a stranger, and Watson, as a lover.

A diplomat, and a mover and shaper; a liar. She had told him lies during the evening, told them to Watson, too.

 _This solves nothing. You are making an exhibition of yourself. Red letter evening. Confidante. You can't walk away. I need to get to know his best friend. Moustache. I am intrigued. I'll talk him round._

While they have been talking to, and looking at, each other, John Watson had found a taxi. He calls Mary, and she skips away to him without another word, without goodbye or dismissal.

John Watson does not - will not - even look at him. He hands Mary Morstan into the taxi and gets in himself. As the black cab sweeps past him Sherlock keeps his eyes fixed on both of them. He will smile and wave farewell if they do. If they let him do such a commonplace, human thing.

Mary Morstan shoots him a brief worried look but does not turn her head to show to John Watson that she is looking at him. John Watson looks fixedly ahead. Ignoring him. Looking angry and pushed beyond endurance. An angry stranger.

Sherlock looks at the taxi, as impassive as his friend. After a moment he flexes his shoulders to ease the shirt away from the skin, drops his shoulders down into the refuge of the Belstaff, dabs the blood from his nose. Breathes in, turns right in the opposite direction to the taxi, then walks away.

A quiet, measured tread.

His nose has stopped bleeding now, but he keeps hold of the tissue. Just in case.

He has things to do, people to see, before the wider world discovers he is alive and he is back. He does not think Molly Hooper will head butt him when he sees her and tells her he is officially alive again. He hopes Lestrade will be his usual serene self when he sees him, that Mrs Hudson will give him a typical tongue lashing and then sweep him into a hug.

It is a long time since anyone has given him a hug, or has wanted to. After the evening he has just had, perhaps he can allow himself the whisper of hope that Mrs Hudson puts her arms round him and draws him close. Just for a moment. Just so he can feel for once that he is on the same planet as the rest of them. Back on the same planet as the rest of them.

Going away was hard. Coming back is going to be even harder. Well, what else did he expect? He sighs, and walks on, and heads for Barts.

END

Author's notes: Many thanks to the wonderful Ariane de Vere for her Sherlock transcripts, always so helpful and done with such love and humour.


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